IDK about jackass cops in VA

I do have a "ride the lighting" story tho

We'd parachuted into Camp Blanding, Fla---literally, from Panama. And, our job was to evaluate the Fla Army National Guard on their summer Annual Training. So sort of a big commitment on our part and a annual and predictable commitment on the part of the Fla Guardsmen

Middle of this giant exercise my counterpart announces he "has to go to work this weekend." I am like "What the fuck dude---this is AT and you're here for the duration of the exercise. Buckle down and see it thru."

Guys response was classic. "you don't understand. I am the State Executioner for the State of Fla and we're electrocuting someone up in Stark tonight. It's my job and I have to do it."

well............. Ok then. GL and see you tomorrow?

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Steve

"Until people like this are immediately removed from LE, there will always be valid concerns. These mentalities should have no home in their line of employment."


Forgive me for snipping, but wanted to address this. My wife works at a VA long term care facility. She is very conscientious and hard working, so it bothers her to see other workers who don't show up on time, or sit around on their phone at times when she asks for help turning someone.

Basically it comes down to the fact that they just can't get enough good workers, so they realize that they have to settle with some who give it about 60% instead of 90-100%. I think that law enforcement is like that, and is probably getting worse as more officers decide that they don't want to work in the current LE environment.

We need to find some way to change conditions so that we have more qualified officers so that we can get rid of the dumb bubbas.

Wow, that is a shocking video.

Edit to add I’m still bothered that they started the interaction with guns pulled. I wouldn’t get out either and I’m white

What you all seek is a professional relationship between someone who has lethal authority and the citizens they come from

Samuel Huntington explored this very question years ago in "The Soldier and The State."

https://www.hup.harvard.edu/...p?isbn=9780674817364

it is the seminal work on the subject

Seek out Huntington's definition of what constitutes a "profession"

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Steve

I’d argue the continued employment of unstable and/or morally corrupt LEO’s is exactly what is causing the situation that makes the environment unappealing to the qualified. I do agree it isn’t a simple fix though.

You may want to add a direct link to the video:

https://m.youtube.com/...mp;feature=emb_title

Ah, america the beautiful ...

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Shocking?? Not at all.

I have yet to talk any african american males who don'thave MULTIPLE stories of personal experiences in police interactions that are far worse than this.

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Assume you were kept in the dark on his one? Seeing as executions are scheduled years in advance I sure would hope the superiors were aware of the leave. I’m envious of your memory btw. I wish I remembered a tenth of my past with half as much detail. When experts talk about witnesses having bad memories, they are specifically talking about me.

as we all known "executions" are often challenged, put off, delayed, and challenged

that was the point of this guy. they finally had a clear path to execute someone. that night. and it was his job to see it done

I'm not championing it. In fact, I've my reservations about 'state sanctioned execution'

I was just relating a "ride the lightening" story i thought relevant.

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Steve

Same.

What's shocking is that there are still white people shocked about this. Don't know what planet those folks are living on. Maybe one without black people?

Let me clarify the shock...well lit area (gas station) with multiple cameras (body cam and likely gas station cameras), a service member in fatigues, yet they still proceeded to act the way they did. I wouldn’t be shocked if this was some dark roadside with no cameras and witnesses. This would be documented by cameras and witnesses yet the officers still proceeded with unabashed jack assery.

I have no doubt this sort of incident happens all the time, but with so much video running it didn’t seem to alter their behavior in the least.

I don't think those people should be given guns. Let alone the ability to pull people over.

What has happened in the past that would cause them to change their behavior? State agents have perpetrated, encouraged and supported violence against black people since the inception of the country and there has been no meaningful record of them being punished in any way for it at any time.

They do it out in the open because they know they can get away with it. And they are right.

I THOUGHT cameras would help to change behavior. Maybe it does for some and not for others

I’m not defending the officers here, but black or white, if I see an officer needlessly escalating a situation, with or without another officer present, I’m doing *exactly* what he or she says, immediately, with hands up, yes sir/yes ma’am, and showing every physical and verbal sign I can muster of full compliance.

Think about this rationally. How does staying in your vehicle make you any safer? It’s as far a decision from good sense as one could muster. At best you’re getting physically dragged from the vehicle. It can only get worse from there.

Guns drawn isn’t the time to make your case about what a good upstanding citizen you are and what you do or don’t deserve. The fact that this continues to happen just baffles me.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

Bullshit. Of course you're defending them. And you, like plenty of "good, decent upstanding LR folks" are going to keep excusing this egregious police conduct by focusing on the most minor of behaviors from a law abiding citizen.

Fear and irrational decisionmaking secondary to it has been used as a justification for all manner of shootings the police have committed. But a normal, law abiding black person couldn't possibly react in an irrational way out of fear? Why is the standard different?

Cut the bullshit act and just cop to what you believe. You and anybody that agree with this devils advocate game can go fuck yourselves as your indifference to this treatment is why it will persist. But look in the mirror and tell yourself you're not part of the problem.

The blacks will suffer in this manner as long as enough of the whites think their suffering is acceptable/necessary.

You need to take a step back and get hold of yourself. You’ve been a real dick to a couple of posters recently because you can’t control your temper.

Like it or not, it’s possible for multiple people to be wrong in a single situation. It’s entirely possible for the cops to have done the wrong thing, and this officer to have also not responded in the smartest way.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

I'm thinking the guy was thinking. Execution scheduled thursday night. Nine time out of ten it is cancelled so I can double book. Not defending the situation but it is what it is.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Take a valium and read what Sphere wrote again. He said nothing whatsoever in defense of the cops. If you read his post, you will see that it was intended as advice to keep rogue cops from shooting you. It is good advice and will result in a much better outcome than what you're likely to experience if you show the same attitude to cops that you show here.

You really need to get the burr out of your ass with respect to your hatred for cops. It makes you act completely irrational towards anyone who doesn't hate cops with the same vehemence that you do.

I was actually speaking in a general sense, and not commenting specifically on the details of this case, of which I know very little. Generally, though, you’d be wise to heed slowguy’s advice and take a deep breath, and actually listen to what people are saying.

When guns are pointed in your direction, black or white, that isn’t the time to not do what’s being asked of you, no matter how you feel about it. Period. In fact, it’s the worst imaginable time to push back, ask questions, protest, or refuse to comply. I won’t apologize for acknowledging that obvious truth, or tolerate charges of bigotry because you can’t accept that as true absent an accompanying condemnation of the police officer’s behavior. At that moment, it truly doesn’t matter if the cop is dead right or dead wrong—it’s about the person on the business end of the barrel not winding up dead. And the best way to improve those odds starts with “Yes sir” and visible hands.

There’s really no argument to be had about that, unless you just want to argue, and frankly I have no interest.

For the record, I wasn’t even commenting on what this driver did directly. I was responding to another poster who said he wouldn’t get out of the vehicle if a cop had a gun pointed at him. I think most people would agree that’s all but guaranteed to raise the threat level even further.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

I don’t know man, you get pulled over for doing absolutely nothing wrong and 2 cops are agitated and screaming at you with guns drawn, I would be frozen in fear with my hands up or out the window. I would be worried opening the door would be mistaken for getting a weapon or something

I think we’ve seen this play out enough times by now to know that when things go south, it’s because the officers seem to be acting out of fear. I understand why some people, younger black men in particular, may let fear ultimately dictate their immediate response to the situation, so I get that, but from all that we know about the situations, the obvious smart move is to fully comply at every step, keep your hands visible, and de-escalate the situation in all the obvious ways. Be respectful, compliant, ask for permission before reaching for something, tell them how you’re going to do what they’ve asked you to do (roll down window, open from the outside so your hands are visible, etc.).

Very often in those cases, the person being detained has a strong motivator to avoid detention, like outstanding warrants, contraband in the vehicle constituting parole violation, etc. I’m coming at it from the perspective of someone with nothing to hide and everything to gain by minimizing the risk of escalation. Refusing to comply completely doesn’t even register as an option in my universe. All risk, no gain.

If I’m pulled over for doing nothing wrong, I’m assuming that I match the description of someone who did, and that their high alert/anxiety is directly related to that, so I’m taking the initiative to raise my chances of driving home safely after the traffic stop. Putting the officers at ease is something I can do, and in fact it’s the only thing in that immediate moment that I have some measure of control over.

From what we can see, yes, the officers could have and should have handled that differently. That also seems true of the driver. I’ll put the odds at 99.999% that had he put his hands up, complied with their direction and exited the vehicle, showed them the requisite paperwork, he’d have driven home a few minutes later with a bruised ego and maybe a legitimate complaint to the department leadership, or a strong civil suit. He didn’t do that, and to the surprise of absolutely no one, it turned into a completely avoidable physical confrontation.

I’ll never blame a pedestrian for being struck by a car running a red light, but I’ll continue to tell my kids to always look both ways before crossing the road because being right doesn’t mean you’ll live to press charges.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

I went back to the video. The cop was overly aggressive, for sure. The driver took over thirty seconds to simply put his hands outside of the window, then told the officer directly that he’s not getting out of the vehicle because he didn’t do anything wrong. Wrong answer.

The officer had a duty and opportunity to de escalate, and he didn’t. When the driver told him, calmly and with both hands visible that he was afraid, a good officer could and should have taken that opportunity to lower the volume and temperature. Shitty police work for sure, in my view. But the driver has an obligation to comply with their direction and refused, multiple times.

I’m curious to know why that was treated like a high threat level stop from the outset. I haven’t read much into the case yet.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

Did you watch the video? This driver was in a fucked situation because of horrific policing. He was simultaneously being told to keep his hands out of the window and get out of the car. You see later the doors are locked so there was no way to open it from the outside. Yes, we’ve seen this play out before. One wrong move with this type of officer and they are dead no matter what they do. Let’s not go looking for reasons to pin this on the victim.